A. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to systems and methods for the collection of market research data from a plurality of cooperating retail stores each of which utilizes Point-Of-Sale (POS) optical scanners/registers and associated automatic controllers. More particularly, the present invention concerns a substantially totally passive or non-invasive automated system and method for collecting market research data on a real-time basis from a plurality of cooperating retail stores.
B. Description of the Prior Art
The collection, summarization and forwarding of Point-Of-Sale purchasing information from retail stores for purposes of market research are old and well-known, particularly since the advent of Point-Of-Sale (POS) optical scanners and the widespread use of the Universal Product Code (UPC) to identify retail products. Typically, retail purchase data is summarized by an in-store POS controller or by a separate store computer attached to the POS controller in the store or, if the store is part of a large retail store chain, by a central or host computer at the headquarters of the retail store chain. The summarized retail purchase data is then typically forwarded to the users of the data by any one of a number of different data storage and transmission techniques, for example, by magnetic tape or disk or diskette or by telephonic data transmission or by over-the-air data transmission.
Very often the market research purpose for the collection of such data is secondary to the primary purpose of assisting retail store operators and managers in product pricing and inventory control. Therefore, often the data collected and summarized does not meet the needs of market researchers.
The following prior art patents bear at least some relation to one or more of the disclosed features of the present invention:
______________________________________ INVEN- PAT. TOR(S) NO. TITLE ______________________________________ Ritter 3,619,783 MEANS FOR DETERMINING TELEVISION CHANNEL USE IN A COMMUNITY ANTENNA TELE- VISION SYSTEM Haselwood 3,651,471 DATA STORAGE AND TRANS- et al MISSION SYSTEM Haselwood 3,772,649 DATA INTERFACE UNIT FOR et al INSURING THE ERROR FREE TRANSMISSION OF FIXED- LENGTH DATA SETS WHICH ARE TRANSMITTED REPEATEDLY Larsen 3,899,775 AUTOMATIC STORE TRANS- ACTION SYSTEM AND TERMINAL THEREFOR Miyake 3,947,624 SYSTEM FOR CONDUCTING A TELEVISION AUDIENCE SURVEY Fuller 4,014,004 AUTOMATIC REPORT REGISTER Porter 4,044,376 TV MONITOR Thompson 4,058,829 TV MONITOR Bridges, Jr. 4,141,078 LIBRARY CIRCULATION et al CONTROL SYSTEM Eskin et al 4,331,973 PANELIST RESPONSE SCANNING SYSTEM Cogswell 4,331,974 CABLE TELEVISION WITH CON- et al TROLLED SIGNAL SUB- STITUTION Johnson 4,355,372 MARKET SURVEY DATA et al COLLECTION METHOD Asip et al 4,361,851 SYSTEM FOR REMOTE MONITORING AND DATA TRANS- MISSION OVER NON-DEDICATED TELEPHONE LINES Ohta 4,361,903 DATA TRANSMISSION PROCESS IN A CATV SYSTEM Anderson 4,377,870 ELECTRONIC AUDIENCE et al POLLING SYSTEM Wright, Jr. 4,404,589 CABLE TELEVISION WITH MULTIEVENT SIGNAL SUB- STITUTION Abe et al 4,471,491 SERVICE CHANNEL SIGNAL TRANSMISSION SYSTEM Gomersall 4,500,880 REAL TIME, COMPUTER-DRIVEN et al RETAIL PRICING DISPLAY SYSTEM McKenna 4,546,382 TELEVISION AND MARKET RE- et al SEARCH DATA COLLECTION SYSTEM AND METHOD Nickerson 4,566,030 TELEVISION VIEWER DATA et al COLLECTION SYSTEM Pejas et al 4,588,881 SYSTEM FOR MONITORING THE MOVEMENTS OF GOODS INWARDS AND/OR OUTWARDS Kurland 4,603,232 RAPID MARKET SURVEY et al COLLECTION AND DISSEMI- NATION METHOD Eglise 4,611,205 DATA COLLECTION SYSTEM Lurie 4,626,904 METER FOR PASSIVELY LOGGING THE PRESENCE AND IDENTITY OF TV VIEWERS Gomersall 4,630,108 PREPROGRAMMED OVER-THE- AIR MARKETING RESEARCH SYSTEM Caswell 4,636,950 INVENTORY MANAGEMENT et al SYSTEM USING TRANSPONDERS ASSOCIATED WITH SPECIFIC PRODUCTS Roberts 4,642,685 STORING DATA RELATING TO et al TELEVISION VIEWING Smith et al 4,644,393 MEANS FOR MONITORING PEOPLE WHO ARE WATCHING A TELEVISION SET ______________________________________
The McKenna et al '382 patent concerns, inter alia, a data collection system for collecting at a central location television viewing data and retail purchase data from a plurality of cooperating households. Each of the households includes a hand held optical scanner for reading bar codes, i.e., UPC codes, associated with retail products purchased by the household. Scanned retail product purchase data and the television viewing data are stored in a common memory in the household and are periodically transmitted by telephone to a central site for processing and market research analysis.
The Eskin et al '973 patent, the Cogswell et al '974 patent and the Wright, Jr. '589 patent disclose, inter alia, a market research system utilizing a plurality of cooperating retail stores for obtaining and transmitting to a central location retail product purchase information concerning a plurality of cooperating panelists. The POS scanners in each of the cooperating retail stores scan bar encoded panelist identification cards and the UPC codes on the products purchased by each such panelist. Each retail store's in-store computer then stores a record of the products purchased by each such cooperating panelist, which record is subsequently transferred to a market research company at a remote location for analysis and possible correlation with television viewing data obtained from the same cooperating panelists.
The Gomersall '108 patent is directed to an over-the-air market research system and method and discloses, inter alia, the collection of retail product purchase information from a plurality of cooperating households by means of a UPC scanner provided to each household. Alternatively, such retail product purchase information may be obtained from cooperating retail stores in a test area. Each store's computer stores and periodically forwards a record of the retail products purchased by each cooperating household, identified by a scanned or manually entered identification code for each cooperating household, which information is periodically transmitted by telephone to a central computer for analysis by market researchers. The information transmitted typically includes at least an identification of the cooperating household, an identification of the retail product purchases made by that household and the identification of the retail store transmitting the data. As disclosed in the '108 patent, the data collected, stored and transmitted by each such store may also include the price of each retail product purchased, the date of the purchase and the time of the purchase.
The Larson '775 patent discloses, inter alia, an automatic store transaction system in which a keyboard is provided at each POS terminal for entering data. A transceiver is also provided at each POS terminal for transmitting data to and receiving data from a central processor. The system is particularly useful for inventory control and for providing data on sales rates and checker productivity.
The Johnson et al '372 patent, reissued as U.S. Pat. No. Re. 31,951, discloses, inter alia, a market research data collection system in which market research data, corresponding to the retail products purchased by a cooperating panelist, are transmitted by telephone from each cooperating household to a remotely located central computer for processing and market research analysis. The data collection system includes a hand held optical scanner located in each household for scanning and storing UPC codes and for entering and storing other related data, for example, the identification of the retail store at which the retail products were purchased.
In addition, several of the other above-identified patents concern systems and methods for transmitting data, such as television viewing data, from a plurality of remote locations to a central location for further processing. For example, the Ritter '783 patent discloses, inter alia, a system in which television viewing data is transmitted to a central location using either modulated RF signals or audio tones.
The Haselwood et al '471 and '649 patents disclose, inter alia, systems in which a computer at a central location periodically contacts by telephone each of a plurality of remotely located data storage and handling units in a plurality of cooperating households. Television viewing data are then transmitted from the remotely located data storage and handling units to the central location by telephone in the form of frequency modulated audio tones.
The Miyake '624 patent discloses, inter alia, a system in which television viewing data from one or more televisions in the household are transmitted in the form of a data pulse train from one transmitter over transmission lines to a survey center where the information is processed.
The Porter '376 patent and the Thompson '829 patent disclose, inter alia, television viewing data collection systems in which television viewing data from several television receivers in one household are transmitted to a single household data collector by, for example, a low power radio frequency transmitter. Subsequently, the accumulated television viewing data for the household is transmitted by telephone to a central location.
The Asip et al '851 patent discloses, inter alia, a data collection system for transmitting television viewing data by telephone to a central office computer.
The Ohta '903 patent discloses, inter alia, a bidirectional cable television system in which remote terminals in the system are polled by the cable head end for transmitting data thereto.
The Nickerson et al '030 patent discloses, inter alia, a television receiver monitoring system for collecting data concerning viewing habits and viewing preferences of television viewers located in a plurality of cooperating households and for transmitting that data by telephone to a central location for further processing and analysis. A remote unit in each remotely located cooperating household includes a microprocessor, a control memory, a data store memory and a modem for initiating a telephone call to the central location. The data store memory stores data concerning television channel selection and the times thereof and television viewer reaction data. At a preselected time, each such remote unit initiates a telephone call to the central location and transmits the collected data stored in the data store memory by telephone to the central location. During the telephone call, the central location can transmit new control information to each remote unit for storage at the remote unit and for controlling the operation of the remote unit until the time of the next telephone communication between the remote unit and the central location.
The Lurie '904 patent discloses, inter alia, a television viewing monitoring system for determining and storing the presence of individual television viewers by means of headphones that both receive the audio portion of a television broadcast and transmit by means of an infrared signal headphone identification data to the monitoring system when a particular headphone is in use.
The Roberts et al '685 patent discloses, inter alia, a television viewing data collection system in which television viewing data from a plurality of homes are transmitted to a central computer by means of a switched telephone network.
The Smith et al '383 patent discloses, inter alia, a system for monitoring the number of people watching a television receiver and for transmitting data relating to the number of people watching a television receiver by telephone to a central location for further processing.
The Fuller '004 patent discloses, inter alia, a mobile vehicle data storage and transmission system that utilizes a radio frequency transmitter-receiver.
The Bridges, Jr. et al '078 patent discloses, inter alia, a library book circulation control system utilizing optical scanners for reading bar codes associated with library books.
The Anderson et al '870 patent discloses, inter alia, an audience polling system for use by lecturers in which a number of wireless transmitters are used for transmitting audience responses to questions.
The Abe et al '491 patent discloses, inter alia, a service channel signal transmission system.
The Gomersall et al '880 patent discloses, inter alia, a computer operated retail pricing display system for displaying pricing and other information in real-time at the shelf or bin location of a product in a retail store.
The Pejas et al '881 patent discloses, inter alia, an inventory control system having an optical scanner for scanning bar codes associated with particular inventory items.
The Kurland et al '232 patent discloses, inter alia, a market survey collection and dissemination system that provides for the downloading of survey questionnaires from a central processor by telephone or by a cable television channel. The Eglise '205 patent discloses, inter alia, a system for auditing vending machines.
Finally, the Caswell et al '950 patent discloses, inter alia, an inventory control system that utilizes transponders associated with particular products for inventory control purposes.
In addition to the above-identified patents, several prior art systems have been commercially used in retail stores for collecting market research information of various types. For example, a system corresponding at least in part to that disclosed in the above-identified Eskin et al '973 patent and the Cogswell et al '974 patent and the Wright, Jr. '589 patent has been used to obtain market research data from a plurality of cooperating retail stores. The market research data obtained thereby, however, is obviously dependent upon cooperation by the store operators and upon the data collection and processing characteristics of each in-store computer or controller that controls the POS scanners/registers. Similarly, a prior art commercially operated system has been used in which a coupon dispensing device is positioned at each check-out counter in a retail store for dispensing a manufacturer's discount coupon to purchasers of products competitive with the manufacturer's product associated with the discount coupon. The latter system is believed to be electrically connected in the store loop, i.e., in the store data and control loop containing the POS scanners/registers and the in-store scanner controller and computer, thereby enabling the device to dispense coupons in response to the purchase of such competitive products. In addition, other prior art commercially available devices are designed to be electrically connected to the store loop and are used for many different purposes, such as for monitoring time and attendance of retail store cashiers.
While many of the above prior art systems and methods constitute significant improvements over prior manual systems and methods of collecting market research data, significant disadvantages exist with respect to many of the above prior art systems and methods. For example, there is a wide variety of manufacturers and types of POS systems for retail stores. Although each type of POS system performs the same basic functions as other POS systems, each different type of POS system performs those functions generally in a unique way. Consequently, the collection of market research data is limited by the methods and procedures in use in a particular POS system. An even greater variety of different summarization schemes in use in connection with such POS systems differing in, for example, level of detail, frequency of collection, speed of collection and accuracy of the collected data, complicates even further the collection of market research data from many retail stores. The physical logistics associated with collecting such data are immense in view of the fact that there are many thousands of retail stores from which market research data desirably is collected about tens of thousands of different retail products. Much highly desirable market research data also is lost or not collected as a result of the various existing summarization schemes in use by in-store controllers and computers or by central or host computers associated with the headquarters of a retail store chain.
Additionally, unacceptable time delays often occur between the occurrence of a retail sales transaction and the receipt of the sales transaction data by a market researcher. Furthermore, most existing market research in-store data collection systems require the active participation and cooperation of the store operators, including cooperation with respect to the use of special procedures, special scheduling and the use of the in-store controllers or computers. As a result, many retail store operators are unwilling to cooperate in collecting, storing and transmitting market research retail sales data due to the potential interference, real or imagined, with normal store operations.
Thus, a long-felt want and need has existed for a new and improved in-store market research retail sales data collection system and method that are substantially totally passive or non-invasive with respect to the regular operations and equipment of retail stores, thereby obviating the concerns referred to above of many store operators. Preferably, any such data collection system and method should also be independent of the in-store POS scanner/register controller and computer and also independent of host computers at the headquarters of retail store chains, thereby enabling market research data to be collected, stored and transmitted to a central location in accordance with the particular format found most advantageous by market researchers.